Slay the Spire 2 Necrobinder Card Tier List (Major Update 2)

TL;DR

The Necrobinder is a high-ceiling, mid-of-the-pack character built on three systems that only win when they pull together: Doom marks enemies for execution, the Soul engine cycles your deck faster than anyone else in the game, and Osty soaks damage that would otherwise land on your 66 HP. Major Update #2 (v0.107.1) buffed three of her best cards and trimmed one, and it swapped the Act 3 boss to Aeonglass, which rewards damage-forward drafts over stall. item:capture-spirit, item:grave-warden, and item:dirge anchor the S tier. Take both copies of Capture Spirit every time.

This tier list reflects v0.107.1 "Major Update #2" (released June 19, 2026).

How to read the Necrobinder

The item:necrobinder runs three interlocking systems. Doom marks enemies for execution. The item:soul engine cycles your deck faster than any other character can. Osty, your persistent companion, absorbs incoming damage before it reaches you. None of them carry a run alone. A deck that does only one tends to crack under the pressure your 66 HP (52 at Ascension 2 and above, the lowest in the game) cannot absorb for long. The drafts that reach Act 3 consistently are the ones where all three pull in the same direction.

One change frames everything below. The Act 3 boss is now Aeonglass, which feeds Wither cards into your deck as the fight runs long and ramps nonlinear damage past turn 10 to 12. A pure block-and-stall plan loses that race. Doom execute and Soul-fueled scaling damage win it, which tilts the whole tier list toward damage-forward picks. If you want the full draft order that turns these picks into a run, our Necrobinder Soul Engine build guide walks the path act by act.

S Tier: The Engine

Capture Spirit

Three Souls for 1 energy. That is the whole card. Each Soul is a 0-cost play that draws 2 and exhausts, so one item:capture-spirit feeds you 6 draws across your next three Soul plays. No other card in the pool produces that volume of cycling at that price. The Souls land in your draw pile rather than your hand, and they leave the game once spent, so the engine has to keep generating them. One copy is strong. Two is a different level of consistency. Take both when offered.

Grave Warden

Block and a Soul in a single play for 1 energy. It does the two things the Necrobinder needs at once: it defends and it fuels the engine. The block alone is unremarkable, but defending and cycling in the same card is the kind of efficiency that holds a deck together before the engine is fully assembled. item:grave-warden shows up in every viable Necrobinder draft regardless of whether Doom, Souls, or Osty damage is your win condition.

Dirge

item:dirge costs X energy. It generates X Souls into your draw pile and runs Summon 3 that many times, stacking HP onto Osty, then exhausts. Cast for 2, you get 2 Souls (4 draws) and a Summon 3 twice. Cast for 3, you get 3 Souls and a much larger Osty buffer. The dual payoff is what makes it S tier rather than A. A bigger Osty is more turns before the fight goes wrong, and on the right late-run turn a max-X Dirge cycles enough of your deck to see almost everything before the turn ends.

Build: ec604309e13d

A Tier: Strong Picks That Earn Their Slot

Death March

Buffed in v0.107.1. The per-draw scaling went from 3(4) to 4(6), so the card reads: deal 8 damage, then deal 4 (6 upgraded) more for each card drawn this turn. On a Necrobinder that already draws more than any other character, that scaling number is the whole point. After Capture Spirit and Dirge dump cards into your hand, Death March turns the cycling into a finisher. The buff pushed it from a fine attack into a genuine boss-turn threat, and against Aeonglass that matters more than ever.

Bodyguard

A starter card that runs Summon 5, putting a meaningful HP buffer on Osty from turn one. It formalizes Osty's job: pull damage off the Necrobinder and onto the companion's own pool. In the early acts, before you have block density to survive multi-hit enemies, item:bodyguard is what keeps you alive through the turns where your Soul engine has not come online. Its value dips against high-hit-count elites that chew through Osty fast. The fix is more Osty HP from Dirge and Summon cards, not cutting Bodyguard.

Sic 'Em

Buffed in v0.107.1. Summon went from 2(3) to 3(4), a bigger one-card Osty heal and buff per cast. If you are running the Osty damage plan, the upgrade is real: more HP on the companion means it survives longer to keep attacking, and item:the-boot relic now applies its damage-increase buff to Osty's attacks as well, which gives the whole archetype a cleaner payoff than it had last patch.

The Scythe

Buffed in v0.107.1. Damage went from 3(4) to 4(5). A small bump, but it lands an attack that competes for early-act slots into a more reliable damage floor while you decide whether the run is pointing toward Doom, Souls, or Osty.

B Tier: Situational, Worth Considering

Borrowed Time

A 1-cost Skill that gains 4 Necrobinder Energy while raising every card's cost by an additional energy for the turn. The use is burst: bank the surge, then play expensive cards (a max-X Dirge, a heavy attack) in a single window you could not otherwise afford. Its value tracks your deck's cost curve. A deck full of 0 and 1-cost cards barely feels the penalty and pockets the energy. A deck heavy on 2-cost cards pays real tax. Read your own pile before taking item:borrowed-time.

Unleash

The second starter. It interacts with Osty and fills the early damage slot before dedicated attacks arrive. Starters tend to teach the mechanic more than they carry a deck, and item:unleash fits that mold. You will not build around it, but it does honest work in the first act while your deck finds its direction, and there is rarely a reason to cut it at the first chance.

Debilitate

Nerfed in v0.107.1. The debuff window dropped from 3(4) turns to 2(3) turns, so the Vulnerable and Weak amplification it provides now covers a shorter stretch. Still useful for stacking damage into a single burst window, but the shorter duration means you want it played right before your payoff turn rather than as a setup you let ride.

FAQ

What changed for Necrobinder in Major Update #2?

Four cards moved. Death March's per-draw scaling went 3(4) to 4(6). Sic 'Em's Summon went 2(3) to 3(4). The Scythe's damage went 3(4) to 4(5). Debilitate's debuff duration dropped from 3(4) to 2(3) turns. The Boot relic also now boosts Osty's attacks, and the Act 3 boss is now Aeonglass, which punishes stall and rewards scaling damage.

How does the Doom execute work, and when should I use it?

Doom is a death mark. At the end of an enemy's turn, if its current HP is at or below its total Doom stacks, it dies instantly, bypassing block and armor, and Doom does not decay. The timing is the catch: the enemy acts first, then dies. Doom builds run enough block and Osty HP to survive that one attack cycle, and the reward is a free kill on a high-HP target. Lean on it against single bosses. Multi-enemy rooms with low-HP targets usually die to direct damage before Doom ramps.

How is the Soul engine different from normal card draw?

Most draw in the Spire is a one-time trigger. Souls are not. Each Soul is a 0-cost card that draws 2 and exhausts, and they enter your draw pile rather than your hand, so they thread through future turns. One Capture Spirit means 3 Souls and 6 draws from a single play. At high Soul density you can see your whole deck inside a couple of turns. Souls do not recycle, so deck thinning keeps the engine humming by shortening the gap between your generators and the cards they help you find.

Do I control Osty, or is it automatic?

Automatic. Osty starts each combat at 1 HP and persists between turns. Your starting relic, item:bound-phylactery, reads "At the start of your turn, Summon 1," which adds 1 to Osty's HP or revives it at 1 if it died. Any Summon X card stacks X onto Osty's current HP. Incoming damage hits Osty first, and only the overflow reaches you. Because it is HP and not Block, it does not decay between turns, which is why a buffered Osty extends your effective health well past the printed 66.

Why is the Necrobinder considered the hardest character?

Three reasons. Her 66 HP (52 at Ascension 2 and above) is the lowest in the game, so mistakes that other characters shrug off are fatal. The Doom execute asks you to eat a full enemy attack on purpose, which runs against the instinct to block everything. And the three systems interact in ways that punish half-commitment: cycling your whole deck with Souls but drawing no block leaves you exposed before the execute lands. The ceiling is among the highest in the game. Reaching it means reading which of the three systems the current run actually supports and building toward that one. For how the other classes stack up, compare the Ironclad card tier list and the Defect card tier list.